the.com/pruning
Cutting the good branches so the plant stops pretending it can do everything.
means To cut away excess growth — branches, words, plans, or options — so that what remains can actually thrive.
from From French 'proignier' (to cut back, trim), whose own roots are tangled and disputed — possibly tied to Latin 'rotundus' (round) via the idea of rounding something off, or to words for 'beak' (the idea of snipping like a bird's bill). Middle English picked it up as 'proyne,' originally meaning to preen or trim feathers before it settled onto trees and shrubs. Either way, the sense has stayed remarkably constant for centuries: a deliberate, bladed act of reduction in service of better shape.
- neural pruning
- Your brain deletes half its synapses by adulthood
- machine learning
- Models get pruned to run faster, dumber, cheaper
- bad pruning
- Cutting wrong season kills next year's flowers
- decision trees
- Pruned trees generalize better by knowing less